In the eight months since Denton’s Seryn stopped by D Magazine‘s offices to play a set, the local darlings have releaed a new album, worked their way into regular rotation on KXT, and scored gigs like Main Street Garden’s HomeGrown Festival and Fox 4’s “The Good Day Show.” Could Seryn be the next emerging local band? As they prep for a summer tour, we caught up with Seryn (individually known as Chelsea Bohrer, Aaron Stoner, Nathan Allen, Chris Semmelbeck, and Trenton Wheeler), who spoke about location, listeners, and love of the anti-genre.
FrontRow: You call Denton your home but you seem to frequent Dallas more in terms of show bookings. The more buzz the band gets the farther from “home” you’ll go, but will Denton always be home base for you?
Seryn: We all love Denton, can’t imagine living anywhere else. Except from June to September, then we wanna live somewhere else, somewhere with nice weather: Canada, Spain, Maine. Places like this.
FR: You’ve played the spectrum of Dallas venues, from Deep Ellum to the DMA. What makes for the perfect playing atmosphere?
S: Listeners. Anyplace where people are paying attention. A crowd and good acoustics really make all the difference in the world. Those are always our favorite shows.
FR: You have a unique blend of instruments working together. Did you all just find each other on opposite ends of the music room or how did all your sounds come together?
S: Experts agree, Timbre is the last frontier. Things tend to start with guitar and banjo, and then everyone does end up all over the place, trying this and trying that. There is a lot of ” That won’t work, actually it sounds kinda sweet! ” Some of our stuff has yet to end up on a recording. Euphonium, clarinet, hammered dulcimer, melodica, trombone, electric organ, and piano, to name a few.
FR: What are you most excited about, but also anticipating, in regards to going on the road this summer?
S: Playing for people who haven’t heard us. Getting to visit Seattle, somewhere none of us has been. Being out of the heat for a few days. Eating as much spinach as possible, and getting to jam out on the new shuttle/party bus thing we bought. It’s cool.
FR: Music is becoming more and more integrated and the lines are blurring between gene definition. You’ve described yourselves as “Folk Pop.” Can you expand on that and explain how Seryn personally makes the two work together?
S: Genres and genre-typing are absurd. In high school I was in a funk metal band, then a neo-progressive soft metalcore group, and then finally a pro-jazzmo-core ensemble. Bands can be grouped, but only so far. We are more folk than not, and more pop than not, so it fits, but only to give others at least some loose idea of what we do. It’s too much to explain African, classical, ambient leanings than to just allow people to make up their minds upon listening.
Photo: Seryn performs at Frontburner Live in January.
